2017was an amazing year for us—Donald’s first appearance at the TCM Festival, the Denver and San Francisco Silent Film Festivals, shows at Yale and Bologna’s Cinema Ritrovato, our first gigs in Canada at the University of Calgary and the amazing Banff Centre for Creative Arts, and return engagements to Isabella Rossellini’s Long Island farm, MoMA, the National Gallery and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Plus recordings for Criterion, Milestone, and KinoLorber. A great year!

MARCH 2017 A busy month for silent film music! We returned to Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline MA for a wacky evening of comedies, including a pie-throwing contest that preceded Laurel and Hardy’s long-lost Battle of the Century. Local drummer Bill Reynolds joined us, and Joanna had an expanded percussion table with car horns, ratchets and other gizmos that made quite a racket. Two days later, from the ridiculous to the sublime: Brown University’s annual touring program of films from Bologna’s Cinema Ritrovato. This year we accompanied two early Italian shorts, one from Venice, one from Bologna, and a short film following Puccini through his day. Joanna found songs by Tosti, as well as early Puccini gems, and a beautiful, fairly unknown aria by Guido Bianchini from his 1949 opera La Ponte delle Maravigie. Later in the month I traveled to Phoenix’s splendid Herberger Theater for a two-day Sherlock Holmes Film Festival, bringing my score for the 1916 William Gillette film, this time as a piano solo.

FEBRUARY Donald and Joanna expanded their January slide show with singalongs and filled the Hotchkiss Library in Sharon CT with singing and laughter in a Valentine’s Day program of favorite love songs through the years, plus comedy shorts. A great program for any time of year! Write us for details!

JANUARY Joanna will sing four Irving Berlin songs and one of our own in Donald’s brand-new arrangements for 21-piece orchestra at the Jan. 15 concert of the Salisbuy Sinfonietta, which will feature Chaplin’s The Pawnshop and Keaton’s The High Sign with scores commissioned last year from Brown University and Bologna’s Cinema Ritrovato, respectively. Jack Bowman, artistic director/conductor. Kids and students free! Please come in Chaplin costumes! Adults (donation suggested) may wear 20’s outfits! Reception at the church, and free champagne across the street at the Lockup Restaurant. Singalongs and Charleston clips. Salisbury Congregational Church, Route 44, Salisbury CT 06068 860-435-2442

DECEMBER Donald did four shows in one day at the San Franciso Silent Film Festival’s Winter Event, and lived to tell the tale.

NOVEMBER Joanna and Donald were at AFI Silver in Silver Spring MD with Lois Weber’s Shoes and The Dumb Girl of Portici, andWilliam Wyler’s The Shakedown. They packed the house at Williamstown’s Images Cinema to celebrate the theater’s 100th anniversary, with Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last and a singalong program.